Whether you're already three sheets to the wind or abstaining from booze this St. Patrick's Day, get to know a little bit more about the wet and intoxicating stuff. We've collected some of our favorite posts about the science, social science, and history of alcohol, so you'll have more to say about your beer aside from the fact that it's green.

There's a whole lot of things that people stuff in their faces. Some of them keep those people alive. Some of them taste good to those people. Some of them help those people win pie-eating contests. Alcohol does none of those things. Why do people keep putting it in their bodies? And what does it do once it gets there? Read more...

Lots of people have a little booze before bed to help them get to sleep — but while a night cap may help in the dozing-off department, too much alcohol can actually do a number on the overall quality of your shuteye. Let's take a look at some of the important differences between drunk sleep and sober sleep, including why it's so damn hard to sleep in after a tipple-tastic night on the town. Read more...

Alcoholic beverages have come in many forms over the years, and gone by almost as many names. "Social lubricant," "liquid courage," "mother of bad-decisions"... the list goes on and on. Many of these names stem from alcohol's most noteworthy quality: it'll get you drunk. Read more...

The Sagittarius B2 cloud has ten billion, billion, billion liters of alcohol floating in it. Most of it is undrinkable, but there are some of them are ethanol, which is drinkable by humans. Scientists still don't know for sure why the booze is out there, but they have a theory. Read more...

The year was 1933. America's fourteen-year experiment in sobriety was over; the federally mandated ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol had been lifted. All across the U.S., people welcomed the repeal of prohibition with open arms and flowing taps. Read more...

Not everyone responds to alcohol in the same way. Some of us get frisky. Others of us get sleepy. Some of us are happy drunks, and some of use are I'm-going-to-order-a-pizza-and-eat-the-entire-thing-in-my-underwear drunks. Then, of course, there are the angry, potentially dangerous drunks. How does ethanol make one person friendly and another belligerent? The answer, say researchers, could lie in a person's ability to envision the future consequences of his or her actions. Read more...

Are you more creative when you're drunk? It's one of those soundbites that you're liable to hear a friend spout off somewhere between their fourth and fifth beer — a little factoid that might actually sound somewhat feasible if only there were a scientific study lying around to back it up. Read More...

Here's some barroom banter-material for the three day weekend: psychologists at the University of Bristol have shown that "young, healthy people" (students and faculty from the University) drank beer faster when it was served up in a curved flute glass (pictured on the right) than they did when it was served to them in a straight glass (pictured on the left). Read more...

Ever been drunk? So drunk you couldn't drive/speak without slurring/be trusted with a cell phone? Sure you have. Ever wished you could just sober up on the spot, without resorting to such humiliating (not to mentionmythbusted) techniques as chugging coffee or splashing icewater on your face? Of course. But you can't. No such sober pill exists. But one day — and soon — it might. Read more...

Drinking can wreak havoc on your insides, and not just the relatively short-lived brand of havoc brought on by a one-night drinking spree. We're talking long-term damage to the mucous membrane of your stomach that can give rise to all manner of gastrointestinal disorders, including ulcers, colorectal cancer, and inflammatory bowel disease. Read more...

Let me start this article by saying; Oh my god, people die from this. People burn their houses down. People explode themselves. People poison themselves. Learn from this article. Use it to inform your upcoming scifi novel about space speakeasies during space prohibition. (Oh, it'll happen.) But don't actually do this. Read more...

What you're seeing here are photographs from an early 1900s theatrical production about the mortal peril of tippling and consorting with card players. Look at Death in those pictures below. He loves getting hammered! Just check out his party face in the second-to-last snapshot! Read more...